Peter Lewis Kingston Wentz III (born June 5, 1979) is an American musician, songwriter and record executive. He is the co-founder, bassist and lyricist for the rock band Fall Out Boy. Before the band's formation in 2001, Wentz was a fixture of the Chicago hardcore scene and was the lead singer and songwriter for Arma Angelus, a metalcore band. During Fall Out Boy's hiatus from 2009 to 2012, Wentz formed the experimental, electropop and dubstep group Black Cards. He owns a record label, DCD2 Records, which has signed bands including Panic! at the Disco and Gym Class Heroes.
Fall Out Boy returned from hiatus in February 2013, and have since released four albums: Save Rock and Roll, American Beauty/American Psycho, Mania, and So Much (for) Stardust.
Wentz has also ventured into other non-musical projects, including writing, acting, and fashion; in 2005 he founded a clothing company called Clandestine Industries. He hosted seasons 1 and 2 of the television show Best Ink and, runs the film production company called Bartskull Films, and owned a bar called Angels & Kings, which had locations in New York and Chicago. His philanthropic activities include collaborations with Invisible Children, Inc. and UNICEF's Tap Project, a fundraising project that helps bring clean drinking water to people worldwide, People magazine states that "no bassist has upstaged a frontman as well as Pete Wentz of Fall Out Boy." He is also a minority owner of the Phoenix Rising FC, a USL Championship team.
Peter Lewis Kingston Wentz III was born in Wilmette, Illinois, an affluent suburb of Chicago. His parents are Dale Wentz (née Lewis), a high school admissions counselor, and Pete Wentz II, an attorney. Wentz is of English and German descent on his father's side and Afro-Jamaican descent on his mother's side. He has a younger sister, Hillary, and a younger brother, Andrew. His maternal grandfather, Arthur Winston Lewis, served as the U.S. Ambassador to Sierra Leone; Arthur Winston Lewis' cousin was General Colin Powell.
Wentz' parents met in the 1970s while campaigning for Joe Biden's senatorial run. Wentz recalled in a Rolling Stone interview that his earliest musical memory was listening to The Foundations' song "Build Me Up Buttercup" in the back of his father's car. Wentz attended North Shore Country Day School, where he was an all-state soccer player. He considered pursuing a professional career in the sport, but decided that music was a more fulfilling choice; he says that he "always had a magical connection to the ball. But it didn't feel like an adventure. Music was more of a challenge and, in the end, felt more interesting."
During his first year of high school, he began skipping school regularly and smoking marijuana with friends, but later quit as it was affecting his grades at school. After graduating from high school in 1997, he attended DePaul University, where he studied political science, dropping out one quarter shy of graduation to focus on Fall Out Boy.
Arma Angelus and other early projects (1993–2002)
Wentz was primarily involved in the Chicago hardcore punk scene and was in several bands in the late 1990s. He formed his first band, First Born, in 1993. By the mid-1990s, he became an infrequent bass player for Racetraitor.
Wentz formed the metalcore band Novena (later renamed to Arma Angelus) soon after, along with Adam Bishop of XshroudX and Extinction; Daniel Binaei of Racetraitor; and Timothy Miller. The band cycled through six bassists before recruiting Tim McIlrath, who had recently departed from Baxter. They released their debut EP the Grave End of the Shovel in 2000. Around this time, Binaei's partial relocation to California led to the hiring of Jay Jancetic of Extinction. McIlrath then departed from the band in 2000, in order to focus on Transistor Revolt and the Killing Tree, leading to the band's recruitment of, XshroudX and Restraint member, Christopher Gutierrez. In 2001, the released their debut album Where Sleeplessness Is Rest From Nightmares. In support of the album they toured with Throwdown and Hatebreed, and performed at Hellfest. These tours also saw the recruitment of bassist Joe Trohman after Gutierrez's departure; however, Trohman's severe stage fright led to the band bringing him back mid-tour and relegating Trohman to selling merchandise.
Around this time, Wentz also played in Birthright, Extinction and Yellow Road Priest. He and Arma Angelus' bassist Joe Trohman founded the pop-punk band Fall Out Boy after Trohman introduced Wentz to a musical acquaintance, Patrick Stump. Andy Hurley agreed to drum part-time, but only joined the band full-time later. In 2002, Arma Angelus played its last show.
Fall Out Boy (2001–2009, 2013–present)
In 2002, Fall Out Boy released an EP called Fall Out Boy/Project Rocket Split EP. Soon after, in 2003, the band released their mini-LP Fall Out Boy's Evening Out with Your Girlfriend on Uprising Records. This album would later be digitally remastered and reissued after the band's rise of popularity on the major label Island Records. In 2003, the band released their first full-length album, Take This to Your Grave through Fueled by Ramen. Fall Out Boy signed with major label Island Records in 2003 and in 2004 released an acoustic EP and DVD entitled My Heart Will Always Be the B-Side to My Tongue.
Their second album, From Under the Cork Tree, was released in 2005.
Wentz wrote the lyrics to the lead single, "Sugar, We're Goin Down" with his dad in Chicago; the song peaked at No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 and spent months in the top 50 of the Hot 100, marking five weeks in the top 10 and fourteen weeks in the top 20. The band's major label debut album has since been certified double platinum by the RIAA as well as "Sugar, We're Goin Down".
In 2007, Fall Out Boy's third album, Infinity on High was released to major success, debuting at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with 260,000 sales, spurred by the lead single, "This Ain't a Scene, It's an Arms Race", which reached the top ten in the US & UK and topped the charts in New Zealand. The second single, "Thnks fr th Mmrs" sold more than 2 million units in the US. The band's fourth studio album, Folie à Deux was released on December 13, 2008, and debuted at No. 8 on the Billboard 200. The band toured extensively in support of their albums.
In November 2009, the four band members announced that they would take an indefinite hiatus, saying they were unsure of the future of the band. Wentz has said that his personal reason for taking a break was that he believed that his name and marriage to pop singer Ashlee Simpson had become a hindrance for the band. He added: "I think the world needs a little less Pete Wentz".
On February 4, 2013, Fall Out Boy unexpectedly announced their return, along with an album and single to which all four members contributed. Once again, Wentz had main control of songwriting duties. On April 12, 2013, the band released a new album entitled, Save Rock and Roll, featuring the lead single My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark (Light Em Up), and dates for a new tour. The band played their first show in over three years on the night of February 4 in Chicago. Save Rock and Roll peaked at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, selling 154,000 copies in its first week, becoming the band's fourth consecutive top 10 album. With Fall Out Boy, Wentz toured heavily throughout 2013 and 2014 on the album, selling out arenas worldwide, with bands such as Paramore on the Monumentour. In October 2013, they released a new EP, PAX AM Days which they recorded in a two-day session with producer Ryan Adams.
The band's sixth studio album, American Beauty/American Psycho, became the band's third Billboard 200 No. 1 album, debuting with 192,000 first week sales and 218,000 equivalent album units. The album was preceded by the triple Platinum top 10 single Centuries. Uma Thurman was released to mainstream radio on April 14, 2014; it peaked at 22 on the 'Billboard' Top 100 and was certified platinum in August 2015.